by Sandra Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2013
Fans of Lee will likely find this a fun, quirky addition to her eclectic media presence.
Recently divorced from her high school sweetheart, Grace is trying to forge a new life in LA, but a rebellious 14-year-old daughter and her dying best friend draw her back to her Wisconsin hometown.
Grace Holm-D’Angelo feels adrift after her divorce from Brian, her high school boyfriend. Moving from Chicago to LA to work with Ken, a renowned set designer and one of her two best friends, is difficult on her and her teen daughter, Emma, and things get worse once Leeza, Grace and Ken’s other best friend, begins to lose her battle with breast cancer in their hometown of New London, Wis. When Emma pushes one boundary too many and finds herself in a dangerous situation, Grace takes a leave of absence and heads to Wisconsin for a few months with her wayward daughter. During the visit, she must face her own secrets and insecurities and finds that she is helped in this through reconnecting with her own heritage and past, particularly in her mother’s kitchen with an old wooden recipe box that’s been in her family for generations. Emma and Grace meet new neighbors and become entwined in the New London community, though they both have their feet straddled between Wisconsin and LA. Coming to terms with their own hopes and fears, the mother and daughter reconnect in powerful ways—to each other, Grace’s mother and their own potentials as they navigate difficult choices and fortuitous opportunities. Food Network celebrity Sandra Lee has penned a decent story with her first foray into “food fiction,” complete with recipes between chapters—nothing groundbreaking or transcendent but a competently drafted book which will satisfy the right crowd. Slow in some parts, and with some awkward storytelling and segues as well as an overly dramatic reaction to a past secret that readers are asked to believe shadowed every aspect of Grace’s life, the book still offers a generally heartwarming tale of a mother and daughter who are facing real-life problems and show the courage and determination to confront them, along with some clever details that flesh out the story in unique, surprising ways.
Fans of Lee will likely find this a fun, quirky addition to her eclectic media presence.Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4013-1083-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2018
A tour de force.
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New York Times Bestseller
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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